Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow with his Yemeni counterpart, Rashad Al-Alimi. Yemen’s internationally recognized government is counting on receiving economic aid and food from Russia—and likely also hopes that Moscow will use its influence with the Houthi rebels to improve the situation in the war-torn country.
For more than a decade, Yemen has been in the grip of a brutal civil war that has been exacerbated by the active participation of external forces. Iran, for example, has long supported the rebels from the Ansar Allah movement, better known as the Houthis, who control about a third of the territory in the north of the country, including the capital Sanaa.
On the other side of the conflict, the internationally recognized government of Yemen—represented by the Presidential Governing Council headed by Al-Alimi—has the support of Saudi Arabia, which, together with its allies, launched a direct military intervention against the Houthis in March 2015. But that campaign, planned to last several weeks, dragged on for years and did not yield the expected results. Accordingly, in April 2022, Riyadh agreed to a humiliating truce with the rebels, though it has not entirely lost interest in what is happening in the neighboring country. The official authorities of Yemen spend most of their time in Riyadh.
There is also another party in this conflict: the Southern Transitional Council. It relies on the support of the United Arab Emirates and advocates for the independence of the southern regions of the country, following the borders of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, which existed from 1967 to 1990. Areas under the southern leadership’s control include the country’s temporary capital and main port, Aden.
Years of civil war have plunged Yemen into a deep humanitarian crisis. About half of the country’s 34 million people now face severe food shortages, and per capita GDP is less than half of what it was in 2015.
The situation worsened further after the Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea in the fall of 2023. The United States and its allies responded to the attacks by bombing Yemeni territory. As a result, oil exports through Aden virtually stopped, causing the internationally recognized government’s revenues to fall by 42 percent in the first half of 2024 alone. The country is in dire need of international assistance, for which it is counting on Russia, among other countries.
Moscow is in no rush to shower Yemen with humanitarian aid, but it is prepared to discuss cooperation in some areas, such as exploring Yemen’s oil fields. The two countries also intend to intensify joint work in the fuel and energy sector more generally, as recently agreed upon by Russia’s deputy energy minister Roman Marshavin and the Yemeni ambassador to Moscow, Ahmed al-Wahishi.
Yemen has also become one of the largest importers of Russian grain, buying about 2 million tons last year. The first meeting of the Russian-Yemeni intergovernmental commission is due to be held this year. But the main issue in relations between the two countries remains Moscow’s possible involvement in a settlement of Yemen’s civil war.
For many years, Russia had no particular interest in the conflict, and did not support one side over another. Russian officials still emphasize their equidistance, regularly meeting with representatives of both the internationally recognized government and the Houthis, as well as the southern separatists. But since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Houthis, with their hardline anti-Western ideology and attacks on passing Western ships, have begun to attract particular interest from the Kremlin, to the point of developing military cooperation.
Military advisers from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, are working in Sanaa, for example, and UN Security Council experts are increasingly reporting attempts to smuggle weapons into Yemen with technical characteristics and markings similar to those manufactured in Russia.
Last fall it emerged that the Russian side was in talks with the rebels (via the intermediary of Iran) over the transfer of Yakhont anti-ship missiles (also known as P-800 Oniks). One of the negotiators on the Russian side is Viktor Bout, who was previously sentenced to twenty-five years in prison in the United States for illegal arms trafficking, but was released in a 2022 prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington.
The Houthis have proven useful to the Kremlin primarily because they divert the West’s attention and resources away from supporting Ukraine. In addition, their prospects in the civil war currently look good: the recent air strikes against Yemen carried out by the United States and Israel have boosted public support for the Houthis. They in turn continue to shell Israeli territory, and it’s possible that here, too, Moscow is involved, providing them with satellite data.
In exchange, the Houthis have supported Moscow on issues important to it, adding their voice to its claims to the status of leader of global anti-Westernism. According to Yemen’s rebels, for example, the war in Ukraine was caused by U.S. policy. In the summer of 2024, Russia and the Houthis joined forces to trick hundreds of Yemenis into fighting in Ukraine.
While formally denying that it provides any military support for the rebels, Russia is, alongside Iran, one of the few countries actively interacting with the Houthis, including at the diplomatic level. The Houthi leadership says it shares common goals with Russia in the Middle East, and Moscow has called on Washington to reconsider its decision to designate Ansar Allah a terrorist organization.
This rapprochement between Moscow and the Houthis makes it important for other parties to the Yemeni conflict to build contact with Russia too. In addition to last week’s presidential visit to Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has met with Ambassador al-Wahishi four times this year alone. Yemen’s official government clearly anticipates that the Kremlin can help to improve the situation in the country, including by reining in the Houthis’ radical activities at home.
In any case, there isn’t anyone else to turn to except Moscow. Until recently, Yemen’s official government had hoped that the U.S. air strikes would allow it to wage a successful ground operation against the rebels and regain control of lost territory. But the rapid cessation of the U.S. operation in early May showed that the Americans are not ready to become embroiled in a lengthy conflict with Ansar Allah, especially amid ongoing negotiations with Iran.
Ultimately, however, hopes for Russian support in resolving the conflict in Yemen are most likely unjustified. The war in Ukraine is taking up too many of Moscow’s resources, and the Kremlin is certainly not prepared to redirect those resources to the civil war in Yemen. On the contrary, the success of the Houthis, who have paralyzed about 12 percent of international trade, distracting the West, suits the Russian side just fine. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria last year, Russia does not have many allies left in the Middle East, and it is not prepared to risk the remaining few for the sake of international stability.
